April 1, 2024 By Roy Harris
The smash-hit Broadway musical “Gypsy” is Hingham Civic Music Theatre’s next production and is opening for two weekends on April 12th in Hingham Town Hall’s Sanborn Auditorium. Audiences are in for a delightful display of song and dance, along with great acting.
Lyrics for this classic show are by Stephen Sondheim, with the music of Jule Styne—and it features hits like “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Together (Wherever We Go),” “Small World” and “Let Me Entertain You.”
Starring as Momma Rose—as she promotes one of her young daughters into a real-life success in burlesque as Gypsy Rose Lee—is Hingham’s Ann McCoy, who has starred in numerous South Shore musicals in recent years. Opposite McCoy is another familiar South Shore community theater star, Brendan Smith, playing Rose’s love interest, Herbie.
Among the many other Hingham stars are Izzy Remington as “Baby Louise” and Winslow Levin as “Baby June,” along with Alexa Hartman as the grown-up Louise, and Cohasset’s Madison Pratt playing grown-up June.
In a show filled with dance, as well as song, Dedham’s John Crampton, as Tulsa, especially wows with his toe-tapping during the song “All I Need Is the Girl.”
The brilliant choreography is by Diana Byrne Gossard, with music direction by Sandee Brayton. And stage-managing duties are performed by “behind-the-scenes” Hingham Civic regulars Julie Collinge and Pat Sherman.
Directing this “Gypsy” is another veteran of Hingham theater productions, Steve Dooner, whose most recent Sanborn show was 2022’s “Guys and Dolls.” But to this show, Dooner also brings an unusual level of theatrical understanding that could provide Hingham audiences with some truly novel insights—relating to human nature, as well as the theatrical world that is this show’s business.
That knowledge is already benefitting his actors, through rehearsals, and could well help give this show a special meaning for the audience as well.
Dooner calls the play “a brilliant expose of theater itself, and the sometimes broken people who make showbiz happen.” The rise of Louise to global fame, first as burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, and later, as a well-known literary figure, stands out as remarkable–especially given her domineering mother.
Indeed, Dooner adds, “If you come to see this show, you’ll see the secret history of Broadway and American theater.”
And, of course, you’ll also get to catch Hingham’s take on this true Broadway classic. When it opened, in fact, New York’s top critics described it as “maybe the greatest of all,” with Mamma Rose being “one of the few truly complex characters in the American musical.”
Tickets are on sale at tickets@HCMT.org for the four performances: April 12, 13 and 20 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, April 21, at 2 p.m. Sanborn Auditorium is in Hingham’s Town Hall, 210 Central St. General admission is $25, with $20 for seniors or students, and group-sale tickets (of 10 or more) $18.
Make plans to see “Gypsy” here in Hingham. And Let Us Entertain You!
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Roy Harris, a semi-retired Hingham-based journalist, plays Momma Rose’s “Pop” in the show